Michael Faraday was an English chemist and physicist best known for his contributions in the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Faraday received little formal education but read scientific books and experimented a lot on electricity. Later on he became a protege of a British chemist, Sir Humphry Davy. He received many scientific honors, including the Royal and Rumford medals of the Royal Society. He was born on September 22,1791 and died August 25,1867.
His research and study of chlorine led to the discovery of two new chlorides of carbon and he also discovered benzene. While experimenting with magnetism, Faraday discovered the existence of diamagnetism and the other fact that a magnetic field has the capability to rotate the plane of polarized light passing through certain types of glass. He also established the principle that different dielectric substances have different specific inductive capacities.